Education

The Origin of Python Programming

We are back with yet another article on Python programming. But this time it is no complex questions or concepts. It is the story behind the origin of Python. Do you know it? No? Then Read it here….

It was the December of 1989 that Guido Van Rossum started looking for a programming project that he could keep himself busy with during the Christmas holidays. All he had was a computer at home and a plan of a new scripting language as a successor to ABC language with an appeal to UNIX or Chackers. With just that resource he decided to develop an interpreter for this new language. Till then he had not decided on the name of the language because he required a unique and inexplicable name for the language which should also be simple and short. Being a big fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a BBC comedy series from the 1970s, he was reading the published scripts of the series. That is when the phrase Python struck him as the appropriate name for the language.

The introduction of Python scripting to the world of technology on February 20, 1991 created a vortex in the world of open source. Python also paced through stages where with every new version additional features started to be added to the original release. Python 2.0 released on October 16, 2000 witnessed the addition of many major features, of which the most important were the inclusion of a cycle-detecting garbage collector and the Python support for Unicode, which brought a change in the process of development process making it more transparent gathering Python more community support. Then came the latest version of Python 3.0 on December 3, 2008 which did not gain expected recognition in spite of the fact that it underwent a long period of testing as most of its major features were back-ported from Python 2.6. and 2.7. versions, Python 2.7. being the most popular among all. But this version became a multi-paradigm language. The most recent version 3.5 of Python has been introduced in September 13, 2015 with a stable release of the version 3.5.2 on June 27, 2016.

Being directly influenced by ABC programming language, today Python language is the inspiration behind the development of many other languages, RUBY, GO, SWIFT (developed by APPLE), BOO, COFFEESCRIPT being a few. As on records, over time till this point Python has induced 72000 packages with a wide range of functionality from multimedia to databases to networking and communications to scientific computing and image processing. Python is a major player in the world of open source and is here for the long haul. This makes Python an important tool in a developer’s toolkit and hence python training a valuable asset in a programmer’s treasure.